Israel-Palestine live: Shelling in Gaza City 'feels like the first day of war'
Live Updates
Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said on Tuesday that while a Gaza ceasefire deal was not yet close, there was cautious optimism an agreement would be reached.
He said that Israel's Mossad chief David Barnea had left Doha, but technical talks were still ongoing.
Ansari added that an Israeli ground operation in the southern city of Rafah would lead to major destruction and "atrocities" that have not been seen during the conflict.
The UN Human Rights Office has said that Israeli restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza could amount to a war crime.
"The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime," spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said on Tuesday.
This week, an image of a Palestinian family in Gaza sitting down to break their fast with ground-up grass in bowls for their meal circulated rapidly online.
One family in Gaza told Middle East Eye's correspondent on the ground that they have been forced to pick grass and cook it amid a lack of any food or humanitarian aid.
“We lie to our children and tell them it’s mulukheya,” they said, referring to a jute mallow soup typically eaten around the Middle East.
While grass is technically edible to humans and non-toxic, it is not the best food for humans, particularly if consumed over long periods.
Grass is made up of water and lignin, a protein that is hard to break down by the human digestive system.
For animals such as cows, eating grass is not a problem as their stomachs can digest and access the starch and cellulose found in grass.
However, for humans, the high amount of cellulose content means that there is little nutritional value, especially when compared to other foods rich in nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
Read more: Palestinians are being forced to eat grass - here’s what it does to your body
Around 54 Israeli settlers raided Al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy police protection in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, according to sources cited in Wafa news agency.
Al-Aqsa is an Islamic site where unsolicited visits, prayers and rituals by non-Muslims are forbidden, according to decades-long international agreements.
Israeli groups, in coordination with authorities, have long violated the delicate arrangement and facilitated raids of the site and performed prayers and religious rituals.
Israeli forces have killed at least 93 Palestinians and wounded 142 more over the past 24 hours in nine "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry.
This brings the Palestinian death toll in over five months to more than 31,819, with over 73,934 wounded and an estimated 8,000 missing, believed to be dead and buried under rubble.
More than 70 percent of the victims are children and women, according to health officials.
The intensifying nature of Israeli air strikes in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are taking shelter, signals an expansion of Israeli "crimes" into the border town, the Palestinian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
In a statement published on social media platform X, the ministry said recent shelling in Rafah represents Israeli "disregard" for international and American calls to ensure the protection of civilians in the city.
"Israel has started to systematically destroy Rafah with daily attacks and repeated targeting of homes, killing civilians," the statement read.
"Israel has started its aggression against Rafah without waiting for anyone's permission or announcing the operation."
The statement came after an Israeli air strike in Rafah on Tuesday morning killed at least 14 Palestinians.
Intense Israeli aerial and artillery shelling has returned to Gaza City, where famine is expected anytime, as ground troops continue to operate in al-Shifa hospital.
Middle East Eye correspondent said the attacks since Monday morning "feel like the first day of the war".
Heavy air strikes were reported in various parts of the city, particularly in the west, levelling homes and killing several people.
The exact number of casualties and extent of the damage are not fully clear yet, as paramedics and journalists struggle to move safely in the city.
The entire population of Gaza is experiencing "severe levels of acute food insecurity", US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday, underscoring the urgency for increasing the delivery of humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.
"According to the most respected measure of these things, 100 percent of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity. That's the first time an entire population has been so classified," Blinken told a press conference in the Philippines where he is on an official visit.
A United Nations-backed food security assessment warned Monday that half of Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing "catastrophic" hunger, with famine projected to hit the north of the territory by May unless there is urgent intervention.
Martin Griffiths, the UN's humanitarian chief, has called for Israel to allow unfettered aid into the besieged Palestinian territory, saying there was "no time to lose".
Citing UN data, Blinken said 100 percent of the population in Gaza needed humanitarian assistance, compared with 80 percent in Sudan and 70 percent in Afghanistan.
"This only underscores both the urgency, the imperative, of making this the priority," Blinken said of aid deliveries.
"We need more, we need it to be sustained, and we need it to be a priority if we're going to effectively address the needs of people."
Reporting by AFP
After a bill in US Congress was overwhelmingly passed to ban the social media app TikTok, social media users outraged online and linked the move to pro-Israel groups trying to curb the surge of pro-Palestinian content on the platform.
The bill, which passed in the House by a 352-65 vote, requires that TikTok be sold to an American company or face a ban in the US.
To become law, it still needs to be passed by the Senate, which the Biden administration has been pushing to happen quickly.
The legislation was the culmination of a year-long effort and has been largely attributed to lawmakers with hawkish views on China. TikTok was created by ByteDance, a company that was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. While the app is owned by TikTok LLC, a company headquartered in the US, TikTok's ownership falls under ByteDance.
While US opposition to China helped launch the bill, journalists, experts, and social media users pointed to several issues since October that they say show pro-Palestinian content was a part of the issue behind the bill's resurgence.
Read more: Why people think the US bill to ban TikTok is linked to pro-Palestine content
Britain's deputy prime minister defended on Tuesday Israel's "right to protect itself" amid growing tension between Israel and its biggest backers, but called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza on humanitarian grounds.
Oliver Dowden said the British government was "continuously" urging Israel to abide by international humanitarian law and had also raised concerns about getting aid into Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis is raging after six months of fighting.
"That's why we are calling for an immediate ceasefire to allow that aid in, and crucially, the hostages to come out," he told Reuters in an interview in Seoul, where he was attending a US-backed Summit for Democracy.
Dowden's comments came in response to a query about tension between Israel and its most steadfast allies in the United States over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war, particularly an expected military push into Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the tiny, crowded enclave.
US President Joe Biden warned Netanyahu on Monday that an Israeli operation in Rafah would deepen anarchy in Gaza and they agreed that teams from each side would meet in Washington to discuss it.
Dowden stressed his support for Israel, saying there is a risk that the world is forgetting the horrors of 7 October, when Hamas launched attacks that Israel says killed about 1,150 people.
"I continue to support Israel's right to defend itself, not only for the sake of Israel, but also I think around the world we should be standing up to this kind of barbarism," he said.
"But what in turn I'll also say to Israel is that they need to show restraint and proportionality in the way that they prosecute the legitimate war against Hamas."
Rporting by Reuters
Tents sheltering displaced people in the central Gaza Strip flooded Tuesday morning following a night of heavy rain, worsening the dire conditions for many Palestinian families sheltering in them.
USAID administrator Samantha Power said the imminent famine in northern Gaza is a "horrific milestone" after a UN-backed food security assessment warned that over 1.1 million people are experiencing "catastrophic" hunger.
"The catastrophic levels of hunger and malnutrition described in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report should be unimaginable in the current era, but for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, this is the reality," Power said in a statement late Monday.
"With just two previous Famine declarations in the twenty-first century, this is a horrific milestone."
Good morning Middle East Eye readers,
It's 7:53 am (5:53 GMT) in Palestine and Israel. Here are the latest developments on day 165 of Israel's war on Gaza:
-
Israeli fighter jets pummelled homes in Rafah and central areas early on Tuesday, killing at least 20 Palestinians. Air strikes in Jabalia north of Gaza City also killed eight people.
-
The Syrian defence ministry said Israeli strikes targeted Damascus countryside, resulting in some "material damage".
-
Biden said he asked Netanyahu to send a team to Washington to discuss ways "to target Hamas without a major ground operation in Rafah".
-
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he will visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week as Washington pushes for a ceasefire.
Good evening Middle East Eye readers,
Israeli forces have killed at least 81 Palestinians and wounded 116 more over the past 24 hours in eight "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry.
This brings the Palestinian death toll in over five months to more than 31,726, with over 73,792 wounded and an estimated 8,000 missing, believed to be dead and buried under rubble.
More than 70 percent of the victims are children and women, according to health officials.
In other developments:
- The Israeli military said it arrested 80 people from Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital during the ongoing raid.
- The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Monday the hunger in the Gaza Strip is "man-made".
- The UN expects famine to hit northern Gaza by May, according to a new report.
- A multi-faith coalition of 60 of New York City’s religious leaders rallied at Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s New York City offices to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza on Monday.
- Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and his team were released by Israeli forces after being assaulted and detained for 12 hours in al-Shifa Hospital on Monday.